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Ohio’s long-anticipated plan to dump the high-school graduation test and replace it with a
tougher college- and career-readiness exam and a series of end-of-course tests appears to be in
limbo.

State lawmakers and education officials have re-opened debate over the graduation requirements.
Without a resolution, sophomores in the 2014-2015 school year would be required to take both the
current graduation test and the new ones.

Ohio education officials say “double testing” would go on for three years and the state would
spend up to $75 million to continue administering the Ohio Graduation Test, which was to be ended
after the coming school year.

“The stumbling block comes down to testing,” said House Education Chairman Gerald Stebelton,
R-Lancaster. “There’s a lot of concern.”

At the direction of the General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Education and Board of Regents
have been working since 2009 on a new college- and career-ready assessment system. The new
graduation requirements were finalized nearly a year ago, with implementation set to begin in the
2014-2015 school year.

The new requirements coincide with more-rigorous Common Core curriculum standards which many
schools already are using and all must have in place this fall.

But efforts to raise the academic bar for Ohio schools began to unravel a few months ago when
Department of Education officials realized that a change to state law was needed to discontinue
usage of the Ohio Graduation Test after the upcoming school year.

The Ohio Board of Education asked lawmakers to include the change in the recently passed state
budget, but legislative leaders refused.

“Why did it come out of the budget?” Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, asked yesterday during a
meeting of a state board subcommittee.

“It was never put in,” Stebelton said.

Sasheen Phillips, senior executive director of the Department of Education’s Center for
Curriculum and Assessment, said the state agency continues to urge legislative action to eliminate
double testing.

“We would be able to move forward without legislative approval, it will just take longer,” she
said. “It won’t happen until the Class of 2022.”

But more eleventh-hour legislative changes could be coming.

The House is expected to have hearings this fall on legislation introduced by Rep. Andrew
Brenner, R-Powell, to revise the graduation requirements and state-administered assessments. House
Bill 193 provides no specifics, but details are expected in a substitute bill to be introduced this
fall.

Stebelton said some lawmakers have questioned whether 10 end-of-course exams are excessive. In
addition, new online assessments for elementary and middle-school students to reflect Common Core
standards have raised concerns for districts with insufficient computer and Internet access.

Rep. Andrew Thompson, R-Marietta, plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to repeal
the use of Common Core standards in Ohio. He and other conservatives say the curriculum guidelines
represent a federal takeover of schools and undermine local control. The standards for math and
English language arts have been adopted by Ohio and 44 other states, part of an initiative launched
by the National Governors Association and states’ education chiefs. Ohio approved them in 2010.